INDUSTRIAL IMPACT
Sartorius Stedim Biotech | August 09, 2022
Sartorius Stedim Biotech, a leading international partner of the biopharmaceutical industry, has agreed to acquire 100 percent of Albumedix Ltd. from private investors. The Nottingham, UK-based company provides best-in-class recombinant albumin-based solutions. Recombinant human albumin is an important component for the biopharmaceutical industry required for various applications, for example as an animal-free additive to cell culture media and for the stabilization of vaccines and viral therapies. The business, founded in 1984, has more than 100 employees and is expected to generate revenue of approximately £33 million in 2022 with a significant double-digit EBITDA margin. The agreed purchase price amounts to approximately £415 million. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close before the end of the third quarter of 2022.
"Albumedix will be an important addition to Sartorius Stedim Biotech's advanced therapy solutions, particularly regarding our cell culture media business, as it will enable us to strengthen our position as a relevant supplier of innovative chemically defined media and critical ancillary materials. This market offers high growth potential due to the increasing regulatory requirements as well as rising demand for the use of recombinant human albumin in near-patient applications. Albumedix will also add important formulation excipients to our vaccine production solutions, allowing us to expand our existing customer relationships and forge new ones,"
René Fáber, member of the Board of Directors and Deputy CEO of Sartorius Stedim Biotech
"We are delighted to be joining forces with Sartorius Stedim Biotech and look forward to accelerating our ambitious growth plans in delivering critical solutions to our global customers. We have been highly impressed with Sartorius Stedim Biotech's knowledge and capabilities in the bioprocessing markets, and we are excited to join this purposeful journey. We believe Sartorius Stedim Biotech will bring tremendous value in strengthening our market reach and broadening our innovation capacity, as well as significantly scaling up our existing platform. We remain focused on our promise of empowering excellence in the life science industry," said Jonas S. Møller, CEO of Albumedix.
The existing 72,000-square-foot Albumedix site in Nottingham will be established as a center of excellence for innovation and GMP-compliant production of critical raw materials in Sartorius Stedim Biotech.
Milbank LLP provided legal counsel to Sartorius Stedim Biotech in this transaction. William Blair acted as financial advisor to Albumedix, and Eversheds Sutherland provided legal counsel.
This press release contains forward-looking statements about the future development of the Sartorius Stedim Biotech Group. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Sartorius Stedim Biotech assumes no liability for updating such statements in light of new information or future events. This is a translation of the original French-language press release. Sartorius Stedim Biotech shall not assume any liability for the correctness of this translation. The original French press release is the legally binding version.
A profile of Sartorius Stedim Biotech
Sartorius Stedim Biotech is a leading international partner of the biopharmaceutical industry. As a total solutions provider, the company helps its customers to manufacture biotech medications safely, rapidly and economically. Headquartered in Aubagne, France, the shares of Sartorius Stedim Biotech S.A. are quoted on the Euronext Paris. With its own manufacturing and R&D sites in Europe, North America and Asia and an international network of sales companies, Sartorius Stedim Biotech has a global reach. The Group has been annually growing by double digits on average and has been regularly expanding its portfolio by acquisitions of complementary technologies. In 2021, the company employed more than 10,400 people, and earned sales revenue of around 2.89 billion euros.
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MEDTECH
Arbor Biotechnologies Inc | August 29, 2022
Arbor Biotechnologies, a biotechnology company discovering and developing the next generation of genetic medicines, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Acuitas Therapeutics, a leader in the development of lipid nanoparticles.
As part of the agreement, the companies will combine the optimized delivery of Acuitas' highly validated LNP technology with Arbor’s differentiated, proprietary CRISPR gene editing technology designed for use in vivo in patients with rare liver diseases.
“We are building a robust, proprietary portfolio of genomic medicines, beginning with severe liver diseases, for which LNPs are known to provide an optimal delivery approach with their ability to efficiently target hepatocytes, limit off target toxicity and have minimal immunogenicity. We are looking forward to working with Acuitas, a leading global developer of clinically-validated LNP technology. Importantly, we believe this partnership accelerates our path to the clinic, with an ability to leverage established and scalable manufacturing.”
Devyn Smith, Ph.D., CEO, Arbor Biotechnologies
Commented Dr. Thomas Madden, President & CEO of Acuitas Therapeutics: “We are excited to collaborate with Arbor on the development of novel genomic medicines for patients who currently have few, if any, therapeutic options. Arbor’s commitment to addressing this unmet clinical need resonates with Acuitas. We look forward to supporting their advance into the clinic.”
About Arbor Biotechnologies
Arbor Biotechnologies is a next-generation gene editing company focused on discovering and developing potentially curative genomic medicines. Founded by Feng Zhang, David Walt, David Scott, and Winston Yan, our proprietary discovery engine is focused on discovering genetic editing capabilities spanning knockdowns to whole gene insertions, which has enabled us to generate the most extensive toolbox of proprietary genomic editors in the industry to date. Leveraging our wholly-owned nucleases as the chassis for genetic modification, we can work backward from disease pathology to choose the optimal editing approach that specifically addresses the underlying cause of disease, resulting in a potentially curative medicine for a wider range of genetic disorders. As Arbor continues to advance its pipeline toward the clinic with an initial focus in liver and CNS disease, the Company has also secured several partnerships around gene editing and ex vivo cell therapy programs to broaden the reach of its novel nuclease technology.
About Acuitas Therapeutics
Founded in February 2009, Vancouver-based Acuitas Therapeutics is a private biotechnology company that specializes in the development of delivery systems for nucleic acid therapeutics based on lipid nanoparticles. The company partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as non-governmental organizations and academic institutes to advance nucleic acid therapeutics into clinical trials and to the marketplace. The team works with partners to develop new therapies to address unmet clinical needs based on its internationally recognized capabilities in delivery technology. Acuitas Therapeutics has agreements in place with several partners to use its proprietary lipid nanotechnology in the development of COVID-19 vaccines. These include Pfizer/BioNTech for COMIRNATY®, which has received full approval in the U.S. and Canada and is authorized for Emergency Use in Europe, the UK and many other countries. The Acuitas team is currently working on therapeutics focused on addressing cancer, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, rabies, and other serious diseases.
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CELL AND GENE THERAPY
Genscript Biotech Corporation | September 23, 2022
GenScript USA Inc., the world's leading life-science research tools and services provider, is collaborating with researchers at the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology to advance the development of new, non-viral cell therapies that modify genomic sequences in the pursuit of more effective cell therapy products while limiting the cellular toxicity that is typically associated with previously available methods.
A new study, published in Nature Biotechnology, details methods for achieving highly efficient non-viral knock-in using GenScript's GenExact™ single-strand DNA modified with Cas9-target sequences. This method achieved up to ˜40% knock-in efficiency in primary immune cell types.
One powerful application of CRISPR/Cas genome editing technology involves the precise insertion of DNA sequences via the HDR pathway. Traditionally, researchers have relied on viral vectors to deliver DNA insertion templates used for gene therapy into cells. However, difficulties manufacturing large amounts of clinical-grade viral vectors have delayed getting cell therapies to patients. Additionally, viral vectors can insert genes at any location within the genome, leading to safety concerns.
Previous research by the group at Gladstone and UCSF has shown that synthetic DNA templates can be delivered without the use of viral vectors, but high levels of double-stranded DNA can be toxic to cells, resulting in low efficiency. Efficiency can be improved using a modified version of the DNA templates that can bind to the Cas9 enzyme. However, additional work was required to improve the yield of successfully engineered cells and to make the process compatible with the manufacturing of future cell therapies. Those goals motivated the team's current study.
In this study, the team tested modified GenExact ssDNA designed with Cas9-targeted sequences to determine if the gene-editing efficiency could be improved with lower toxicity. First, synthetic sgRNA was complexed with Cas9 protein to form a RNP complex. Then the RNP and ssDNA template were delivered into the cell via electroporation, enabling efficient gene editing.
The team discovered that this combination of GenExact ssDNA with Cas9-targeted sequence offers up to 40% knock-in editing efficiency with minimal cellular toxicity. This approach can accelerate the development and manufacture of novel, high-yield non-viral gene therapies — and at lower cost.
"We are very proud to have collaborated on this groundbreaking scale-up work by the talented team at Gladstone and UCSF. GenScript is excited for the opportunities that this high-yield cell-line engineering process will provide to our customers," said Ray Chen, Ph.D, president of GenScript Life Science Group.
"We were very happy to partner with Genscript on critical experiments demonstrating high efficiency and yield of CAR knock-in cells at clinical scale. The long ssDNA produced by Genscript exceeded our expectations and helped us clearly demonstrate the potential for future therapeutic applications using these methods.",
Brian Shy, MD, PhD, a former clinical fellow in the lab of Alex Marson, MD, PhD, director of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology
About GenScript Biotech Corporation
GenScript Biotech Corporation is a global biotechnology group. Based on its leading gene synthesis technology, GenScript has developed four major platforms including the global cell therapy platform, the biologics contract development and manufacturing organization platform, the contract research organization platform, and the industrial synthesis product platform.
GenScript was founded in New Jersey, USA in 2002 and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2015. GenScript's business operation spans over 100 countries and regions worldwide, with legal entities located in the USA, mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Ireland. GenScript has provided premium, convenient, and reliable products and services for over 100,000 customers.
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